Novation has dropped the price of one of its most recent grooveboxes by 25 percent for Black Friday. Until December 6th, sampler enthusiasts and beatmakers can snag the Novation Circuit Rhythm for $300, a discount of $100.

Circuit Rhythm builds on the simple screen-free workflow that helped make the original Circuit such a hit. This groovebox is focused on sampling, and it seems Novation was inspired by the Roland SP series.

We gave the Circuit Rhythm a score of 87 in our review. Novation says the machine runs for up to four hours on a single charge, but in testing it typically operated for three to three and a half hours before requiring a recharge. We liked the sampling and slicing features and the simple, intuitive workflow. However, the more advanced features take some getting used to and, if you're not careful, it's easy to push an effect like delay, reverb or sidechain from barely noticeable to over the top.

Novation doesn't often run sales on its products. So, this is a good deal on an solid entry-level sampler.

Get the latest Black Friday and Cyber Monday offers by visiting our deals homepage and following @EngadgetDeals on Twitter.

All products recommended by Engadget are selected by our editorial team, independent of our parent company. Some of our stories include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Tile trackers are among the many, many products that are on sale this Black Friday, and some of the bundles have hit all-time-low prices. The Performance Pack, which includes one Tile Pro and one Tile Slim (the credit-card sized one), has dropped from $60 to $42.

The Pro Essentials bundle is also currently at the lowest price we've seen for it. For $70 (regularly $100), you'll get two Tile Pros, a Tile Slim and a Tile Sticker.

It's worth noting that the packs include the 2020 versions of the products, not the latest, more powerful versions Tile announced in October. The 2020 Sticker has a 150-foot range. Slim has a 200-foot range, and Pro has double that. Sticker and Slim are waterproof, and Pro is water resistant (and has the loudest ring). Each has a three-year battery life, though the Pro's battery is replaceable.

Some of the latest Tiles are on sale too. A two-pack of the 2022 Tile Mate is down from $48 to $35, while you can save $15 on a two-pack of the 2022 Tile Sticker. That bundle is currently $40.

Tile devices are Bluetooth trackers designed to help you find misplaced items. There's a crowdsourcing function that lets Tile other users ping the location of a tracker that's out of your own Bluetooth range, a setup that's become more commonplace in other trackers, like Apple AirTags.

If you're interested in picking up these products at these prices, you might need to move swiftly. These are one-day-only deals.

Get the latest Black Friday and Cyber Monday offers by visiting our deals homepage and following @EngadgetDeals on Twitter.

All products recommended by Engadget are selected by our editorial team, independent of our parent company. Some of our stories include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Russian officials are investigating Netflix after the public commissioner for protecting families accused the company of violating a "gay propaganda" law, according to Reuters. The commissioner claimed that some Netflix content with LGBTQIA+ themes was rated suitable for those aged 16 and older. The country's laws do not allow the distribution of "propaganda on non-traditional sexual relations" among under 18s. 

The Interior Ministry is said to be looking into the complaint. If Netflix is deemed to have broken the law, it faces a fine of up to a million rubles ($13,390). More significantly, the service could be temporarily suspended.

A Netflix source told Vedomosti the company didn't find any LGBT content that was rated 16+ during a review earlier in November. The newspaper also reported this month that officials may ban streaming services from having shows and movies that depict "non-traditional sexual relationships and sexual deviations” in their libraries, including the likes of Fifty Shades of Gray and Billions.

The European Court of Human Rights determined in 2017 that the "propaganda" law, which was enacted in 2013, discriminates against LGBTQIA+ people and violates European treaty rules and the right to freedom of expression. Activists and Western states have also criticized the regulation.

Meanwhile, Russia is taking aim at foreign tech companies at a broader level. This week, it said the likes of Apple, Facebook parent Meta, Google, TikTok, Telegram and Twitter would need to set up official presences in the country by the end of the year, if they haven't already done so.

The European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union, has proposed a ban on some types of targeted political ads that employ sensitive personal data, including ethnic origin, religion, health status or sexual orientation, unless users give explicit consent. If the rules come into force, advertisers would have to provide clear details on the criteria they use for targeting, as well as the "amplification tools or methods" they harness.

Every ad would also have to be more transparent in terms of displaying the name of the person or organization that paid for it, as well as disclosing how much was spent, where the money came from and the ad's connection to an election or referendum.

The EC is hoping these measures will help protect election integrity, largely by making it more difficult for campaigns to target and mislead marginalized groups. It said people should be able to easily tell when they see a paid political ad, whether online or offline, and take part in political discussions without being impacted by interference, manipulation or misinformation.

“Elections must not be a competition of opaque and non-transparent methods. People must know why they are seeing an ad, who paid for it, how much, what micro-targeting criteria were used," the EC's vice-president for values and transparency Vera Jourová said in a statement.

If the bill becomes law, EU member states will need to determine fines for breaching the rules. National data protection authorities will be tasked with monitoring how personal data is used in ad targeting and imposing fines when appropriate. The EC is hoping to enact the rules, which build on the General Data Protection Regulation and planned Digital Services Act, by spring 2023, ahead of European Parliament elections the following year.

Political ads have been a hot button issue for online platforms for several years. Facebook and Google both temporarily banned them after polls closed in the 2020 US presidential election to stem the flow of misinformation. Earlier this month, Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, removed thousands of ad targeting options, including those related to ethnicity, health, religion, sexual orientation and political beliefs. Twitter banned all political ads in 2019.

The EC's proposed rules could also prevent some types of surreptitious data collection. Back in 2019, PR farms connected to the Republican party used Google's ad network to vacuum up email addresses of potential voters.

A ton of Razer accessories are on sale on Amazon for Black Friday, including mice, headsets, keyboards and a gaming chair. There are all-time lows on a bunch of products too. One of the better deals is for the Viper Ultimate wireless mouse. The price has dropped to $90, which is $60 off the regular price. The Viper Wireless is available in both black and white. It's an ambidextrous mouse that has Razer's optical switches, a 20K DPI optical sensor and low-latency HyperSpeed wireless tech.

Another wireless mouse worth checking out in the sale is the DeathAdder v2 Pro. It too has a 20K DPI Optical Sensor and optical switches. You'll get up to 120 hours of battery life over Bluetooth or 70 hours via HyperSpeed, according to Razer. It's available for $70 at the moment, which is the lowest price we've seen to date. The mouse typically costs $130.

Also hitting all-time-low prices are the iOS and Android versions of the Kishi controller. It's a gamepad that you can clip your phone into. Along with playing native mobile games, you can use it with the likes of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, Google Stadia, Amazon Luna and GeForce Now for cloud gaming, as well as games streamed from your console or PC. The Android version of the controller is $45 ($35 off) and the iPhone model is currently $60 (down $40).

Elsewhere, the Kraken X Ultralight wired gaming headset is worthy of attention. It has a bendable, noise-canceling mic and is compatible with PC and all consoles. The classic black verison of the headset, which is typically $50, currently costs $30, another all-time low.

Get the latest Black Friday and Cyber Monday offers by visiting our deals homepage and following @EngadgetDeals on Twitter.

All products recommended by Engadget are selected by our editorial team, independent of our parent company. Some of our stories include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Roblox is suing a person it banned years ago for allegedly terrorizing the gaming platform and its community of developers. The Roblox Corporation wants Benjamin Robert Simon to stop his alleged harassment of employees and users on Roblox and elsewhere, and to pay $1.65 million in damages.

In the filing, which was first reported by Polygon, the company claims Simon, an alleged "cybermob" leader, “commits and encourages unlawful acts designed to injure Roblox and its users.” Roblox banned him years ago, allegedly for using homophobic and racist slurs, harassing others and sexual harassment. Simon is said to use accounts created by others and hacks to maintain access to the platform.

The suit contains several examples of purported misconduct on Simon's part. Among them is an allegation that he posted "false and misleading terrorist threats" last month that led to a temporary shutdown of the Roblox Developers Conference in San Francisco. Roblox claims it cost $50,000 to investigate the threat and secure the venue.

In addition, Simon is accused of "glamorizing the April 3, 2018 active shooter and murder at YouTube headquarters in San Bruno, California and threatening/taunting a copycat act of terrorism at Roblox headquarters in nearby San Mateo, California." Roblox also claims he tried to upload a mostly nude photo of himself and images of Adolf Hitler, and attempted to upload a sex game to the platform.

Simon, a popular YouTuber known as Ruben Sim, allegedly profited from videos of stunts that were uploaded to that platform and Patreon. The Roblox Corporation is suing him for, among other things, breach of contract, fraud and allegedly violating both the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and the California Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act.

Roblox has tens of millions of daily users, many of whom are kids. Keeping trolls as far away as possible from the platform is important to help protect the platform's young audience. The lawsuit follows an outage that knocked Roblox offline for three days.

If you're in the market for a budget-friendly smart speaker or two (or three) this Black Friday, it might be worth casting a glance in Amazon's direction. Several Echo devices went on sale last week, and now you can save on more. Among them is the Echo Dot with Clock. It's $35 at the moment, which is $25 lower than the regular price. These are the lowest prices we've seen for either device.

The Echo Dot is a smaller version of the Echo speaker. Amazon changed the design last year from a flat hockey-puck look to a spherical one. The Echo Dot with Clock is pretty much the same device save for the addition of an LED clock display..

We gave the Echo Dot a score of 88 in our review, finding that it offered decent sound quality for the price. The 3.5mm audio out jack is a plus, as is the option to tap the speaker to snooze the alarm. There are physical volume controls, a mic mute button and a button that activates Alexa without having to say the wake word. The voice assistant is the main way people will interact with the device, of course.

Elsewhere, Amazon has discounted a bundle of the Echo Show 8 and a Blink Mini camera. They typically cost $165 when buying them together, but the bundle is available right now for $95.

Amazon upgraded the Echo Show 8 over the summer with a faster processor and better camera than the previous model. When you're on a video call, the device can follow you around a room using digital panning and zooming. In our review, we highlighted the quality of the display and audio.

Nicole Lee/Engadget

You can use the smart display to watch a live feed from the Blink Mini. The indoor camera captures video at a resolution of 1080p, and it offers motion detection and two-way audio. Users can control the Blink Mini with another supported Alexa-enabled device or the Blink app too.

Get the latest Black Friday and Cyber Monday offers by visiting our deals homepage and following @EngadgetDeals on Twitter.

All products recommended by Engadget are selected by our editorial team, independent of our parent company. Some of our stories include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Amazon isn't quite done with its Black Friday e-reader deals. After it put several other Kindles on sale, the company has dropped the price of the latest Kindle Paperwhite from $140 to $105.

The fifth-gen Paperwhite, the first refresh in three years, was announced in September. It has a larger screen than the previous model at 6.8 inches (the last-gen Paperwhite had a six-inch display). Amazon claims the 300 ppi screen looks like real paper and the glare-free screen enables "easy reading" in any condition, including direct sunlight. Having a screen that's said to be 10 percent brighter than the last model's will certainly help.

In addition, there's a white-on-black dark mode and revamped interface, while Amazon says page turns are 20 percent faster. The fifth-gen Paperwhite is water resistant and there's support for USB-C fast charging.

Meanwhile, the Kindle Oasis is on sale too. The 8GB model, which typically costs $250, is currently available for $175. The e-reader was previously on sale for that price during this year's Prime Day.

The Oasis also has a 300 ppi display, though the screen is slightly larger than the Paperwhite at seven inches. It has physical page turn buttons, an IPX8 waterproof rating and a color-adjustable front light.

Get the latest Black Friday and Cyber Monday offers by visiting our deals homepage and following @EngadgetDeals on Twitter.

All products recommended by Engadget are selected by our editorial team, independent of our parent company. Some of our stories include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, is set to testify before a Senate panel in December. He'll appear at a series of hearings on online protections for kids that a consumer protection subcommittee is holding during the week of December 6th.

“He’s the top guy at Instagram, and the whole nation is asking about why Instagram and other tech platforms have created so much danger and damage by driving toxic content to children with these immensely powerful algorithms,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who is chair of the subcommittee, told The New York Times.

Mosseri will testify in the wake of revelations by whistleblower Frances Haugen, a former Facebook product manager. Haugen told a panel last month that research conducted by Facebook determined “engagement-based ranking on Instagram can lead children from very innocuous topics like healthy recipes… to anorexia-promoting content over a very short period of time.” The previous month, Antigone Davis, the global head of safety for Instagram parent company Meta, downplayed recent reports based on internal Facebook documents, which indicated that Instagram can negatively affect the mental health of teenagers and young girls.

After Davis testified, Blumenthal wrote to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, asking either him or Mosseri to testify. Blumenthal suggested in his letter to Zuckerberg that the company “provided false or inaccurate testimony to me regarding attempts to internally conceal its research.”

This will mark the first time Mosseri has testified before Congress. Blumenthal plans to ask Mosseri to commit to making Instagram's ranking and recommendation algorithms transparent, partly so experts can look into if and how the platform promotes potentially harmful content. The senator noted that Snap, TikTok and YouTube leaders made similar commitments after they testified at a prior hearing. Blumenthal also said he will ask Mosseri about Instagram's recommendation systems and how they may lead children "into dangerous rabbit holes." 

A group of state attorneys general are also investigating how Instagram impacts teenagers. Meta Global Affairs VP Nick Clegg recently announced that Instagram will encourage teens to "take a break" from the app and try to divert them away from harmful content.

It seems big changes are coming to Fortnite soon. Chapter 2, which started all the way back in October 2019, will wrap up with a one-time-only in-game event called The End at 4PM ET on December 4th.

"With The Convergence complete, The Cube Queen prepares her endgame for the Island and nothing will ever be the same," Epic Games wrote in a blog post. "Grab your weapons and fight the ultimate destroyer of all reality."

The Chapter 1-closing event was also named The End and it blew up the original island in spectacular fashion. Fortnite was offline for a few days before Chapter 2 started with an entirely new map. Among other updates, Epic also brought in a fresh user interface and new mechanics in Chapter 2. Given that the publisher says players will battle The Cube Queen "in one last stand for the fate of the Island" and that nothing will seemingly be the same, it seems likely more major changes are coming to the battle royale in the near future.

If you have any Bars or Battle Stars, use them before the end of the season, since they won't carry over to Chapter 3. Starting on November 30th, character services and exotic item trades will be discounted in Bargain Bin Week. Fortnite will automatically redeem unused Battle Stars for the earliest available rewards. If you have any remaining quests you want to complete, now might be the time to do that.

Squads of up to 16 players will be able to experience The End together. The event playlist will open at 3:30PM, so it's probably worth joining early to secure a spot. Meanwhile, since Epic is ending the season a day earlier than planned, everyone who logs into Fortnite before it wraps up will receive a 225,000 XP bonus. Those who take part in the event will unlock a special Loading Screen and Wrap too.